Are you a casual or hardcore gamer? Can’t wait to click heads in Valorant and Counter-Strike? Arm yourself with these 6 ways to manage your gaming finances.

Nowadays, digital games have been designed to appeal to many different audience groups. The increasing popularity of games such as Candy Crush, Pokemon Go, PUBG, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Genshin Impact, Animal Crossing, and Last of Us Part II, have resulted in an influx of people of all demographics getting into gaming.

Gaming has become an important aspect of your life in managing stress levels amidst your increasingly busy lifestyles. Having a moment of the day to just sit back and relax goes a long way in helping you to relax.

Hence, it is becoming more crucial that gamers take their gaming finances seriously as many companies are increasingly monetising their games from different aspects.

We take a look at managing the different ways you are spending money on your gaming activities.

#1: Know Your Choice of Gaming Set-up

This is the most important first step in your gaming journey. Choosing and budgeting for your main gaming equipment. This will depend on the kind of gamer you are and the experience you are looking for.

In general, there are 3 main types of gaming equipment out there.

  • Personal Computer
  • Console (Playstation, XBox, Nintendo Switch)
  • Portable Handhelds (Playstation Portable, Nintendo DS, Mobile Phones)

If you are the type that likes to build your own gaming set-up, you should choose the personal computer (PC) route. It enables you to choose your own parts and accessories to build. You should look at these hardware components when you are building your PC.

Furthermore, many publishers have started to port over games designed for consoles to PC, enabling you to play them. PC is ideal also to play first person shooter (FPS) and massively multiplayer online (MMO) games if you are into those genres of games.

If you are the type that just wants to play games without needing to bother with complicated set ups or hardware, you should choose consoles as they come in a fully playable state without much bugs or requirements once you purchase them. You don’t need to fiddle around with the hardware and you can easily fire up your games from the comforts of your couch.

For people who like to play games on-the-go, look no further than portable handhelds. You can pick them up at anytime and play them no matter where you are. Better yet, you can use your current smartphone to play mobile games and you do not need to spend on other portable handhelds.

In terms of cost, console and portable handhelds (exclude mobile phone) are sold mainly at fixed prices. PC prices however vary wildly depending on how you build it and the relationship with the PC vendor. The higher quality PC you want, the higher the price you will pay for.

Narrowing down your choice of gaming set-up is important as you need to ensure that you are not buying multiple set-ups to play your games. While many developers are increasingly creating games for multiple platforms, you need to be aware that some games are exclusive to certain set-ups. For example, God of War was a Playstation 4 exclusive when it came out so you could only play it on the Playstation 4.

When you are budgeting for your choice of gaming set-up, take note of the exclusivity of some games and also the potential maintenance cost that comes with them. In some instances, you need to be aware that the same game might be priced differently for different gaming platforms depending on the sales and discounts that are offered.

#2: Choose Games That You Will Play Consistently

You would have surely purchased games in the past you probably only played for some hours, and then put it aside never to be played again. They are left sitting on your shelf or in your storage, never to be touched again.

Games are expensive, ranging typically from RM100 to RM400 per game. Your gaming finances could be managed better through stopping yourself from buying games on impulse to avoid wasting money on games that are later abandoned early.

In order to better manage your future games purchases, identify the genres you are most interested in. Take stock of games you have played in the past that you have enjoyed. Identify at least two genres that you consistently enjoyed. Use this data to guide your future purchases.

A good barometer on what games to choose is to ask yourself do you see yourself spending at least 50 hours playing the game when you buy it. If you don’t, maybe you shouldn’t buy the game then.

There are a multitude of free games out there that you can pick up to play without cost, but be aware of the monetisation of these games as they could prove to be predatory. The issue of predatory practices will be covered in point #5.

#3: Regularly Check Reviews

As gaming set-ups will eventually need replacing and newer games always being purchased, it is important to regularly read reviews of what’s new in the market.

This is necessary to ensure that you are getting the best value out of your money when it is time to spend.

For gaming set-ups, it is more straightforward to get reviews of consoles and portable handhelds (excluding mobile phone) as they are mostly of the same quality and hardware.

However, for PCs, this gets trickier as you would have to ultimately read the reviews of each PC parts and accessories to get the most optimal build, but they are ultimately worthwhile for getting the best value of your money.

When it comes to games, it is always exciting for gamers to keep up to date with the latest popular releases. However, hold off on purchasing the game until you have checked up on their reviews first. IGN, Gamespot, and Steam are great resources for conducting your research on whether a game is worth buying. Remember, buy based on the genres you have identified as your preference!

As a rule of thumb, any games or products that are rated below 3 out of 5 stars are to be considered with caution. Anything that is above 3 stars can be considered creditworthy but it is still important to form your own opinion about it also.

#4: Wait For Discount Periods

Another way of managing your gaming finances, is to wait for discount periods.

With the many e-commerce platforms today, they are all running frequent discounts for electronic and gaming stuff every month or during special occasions. Most of them are for older products or games but you don’t need the latest ones to play your games or be entertained.

Games in particular have special deals happening constantly. Steam for example runs regular Steam sales on their platform for PC games, same with the Playstation and Xbox stores. Furthermore, when a developer or game has an anniversary coming up, they will normally have a big sale for all their games.

For PC games, you can look at these top 3 online sites to buy your games.

Don’t underestimate these sales period, as discounts could go as high to 90%, saving you a lot of money.

#5: Be Careful of Predatory Practices

Just like any other industries, the gaming industry does have predatory practices around and is a source of concern for gamers as they also consist of very young adults and children and affects adults like you too.

Some of the examples of potentially predatory practices include:

  • Lootboxes
  • Gacha games
  • In-App or In-Game Purchases
  • Misleading Game Advertisement

If you have children, it is important that you educate them on the dangers of some of these practices and also be aware on the impact of these practices on you.

Lootboxes and gacha games inherently are gambling practices where you spend money to get things that you want but through a probability and chance basis. Lootboxes give you the opportunity to try to pull for cosmetics for your character in the game. Gacha games business model is based entirely on its users buying resources in the game to pull for units that they want. They are predatory  as there is only a small chance of getting what you want, and especially so for people who have gambling problems.

As for in-app or in-game purchases, they can be predatory if you or your children really like certain cosmetics or game features but they can only be purchased with real money. Some features of the games are even required to play the game further past a certain stage, and thus in some ways forces the gamer to buy the features to proceed in the game.

#6: Track Your Spending

To ensure that you don’t mismanage your finances around gaming, track your spending and do set a limit on your monthly gaming expense.

Firstly, just track your past spending on a spreadsheet or any of the free expense tracker apps out there. Determine how much you have been spending monthly on your gaming activities.

When it comes to setting a limit on your spending, take a certain percentage of your monthly income and set that as a limit. Ideally, It shouldn’t exceed 5% of your income. This limit should count as part of your entertainment expenses in your monthly budget. Any higher and you would be cheating your future self of money better spent in securing your future financial stability.

There are always many games being released every month which makes spending on them very appealing. Imposing a limit on your spending helps you take better care in choosing which games you would enjoy more over others.

In point #5 , you have seen how the gaming industry has predatory practices, hence this limit also serves to mitigate those dangers in your life.

Conclusion

Gaming is by and large becoming a commonplace activity enjoyed by many, and as such the industry is eagerly monetizing many aspects of gaming. Hence, it is important that you manage your finances around your gaming activities by first setting a budget for your gaming set-up, choosing games that you will play consistently, checking up on reviews, waiting for discounts, being careful around predatory practices, and setting a limit for your gaming expense every month.

 

Do you have any other ways of planning your gaming finances? Let us know in the comments below!

 

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